Just [Be]Cause!
Playing Just Cause, we were reminded of a quote famously used to describe one of the finest action titles of its generation; Halo. "It's basically the same five minutes of fun, recycled over and over again". It seemed appropriate, because just a few missions into Eidos' guns-blazing free-roamer, you'll spot a similar pattern emerging.
Unfortunately, it's no Halo, but Just Cause is an extraordinary release in many respects - For at the heart of its lush, expansive jungle setting, is a single-minded, hi-octane, guts or glory approach to gameplay some may find overly repetitive - while everyone else will delight in the absurdly over-the-top'ness of absolutely everything it does. If there was an end-of-year award for a game that divides opinion, Just Cause would be the front-runner.
It's a game that acts as brazenly as possible; tongue firmly planted in cheek, heart on its high-definition sleeve, and slick gelled mullet on its suave-as-a-suit Antonio Banderas-esque ladies' man main character, Rico Rodriguez. Indeed, from the moment it beings - propelling him out of a plane at several thousand feet and literally handing you the reigns in freefall - you can tell this won't be quite like anything you've ever played before.
Makes everything from Snake Eater to GTA and even the mighty Oblivion all look small-scale and unambitious by comparison.
The closest and most obvious comparison, of course, is going to be GTA - but that's also entirely misleading. Sure, they share a large open-plan gameworld, and sure, they both favour large dollops of D.I.Y. mayhem as the entertainment of choice… but whereas Rockstar's series is an almost entirely urban affair, Just Cause comes with a distinctly Latino style, foliage-rich flavour and such freedom to explore that it feels like a breath of fresh air. Oh, and its gameworld is around thirty times larger than that of San Andreas, too. Natch.
That last point, however, is never really the huge flashing neon bullet point amongst the game's features that it could, and possibly should, be. San Esperito itself is truly huge, and scrolls seamlessly with nary a loading screen in sight, but it's depiction of a living, breathing world is less convincing than its amazing technical values would warrant.
It's the people that can be the problem. They'll walk, drive, run - even take to the air in choppers and planes to fly - around in a manner that's acceptable enough in passing - but really, when it comes to engaging with them, they're mostly just cannon fodder. Where the gameworld itself feels unbelievably coherent, doing the most breathtaking job we've ever seen of rendering forests, cliffs, ravines, rivers, beaches and enormous suspension bridges - and it honestly does make everything from Snake Eater to Shadow of the Colossus, GTA, Far Cry and even the mighty Oblivion all look small-scale and unambitious by comparison - its populace give the sense that they have but one single, simple purpose for being there: You.
Likewise, the game's several hundred side missions lack a certain sense of personality and variety that you'd hope for in such a sandbox style game. They range from racing against the clock in a vehicle to a given waypoint, to Liberation and Drug Cartel missions - which are both ostensibly the same thing, tasking you with blowing up three roadblocks before either raising the rebel flag or doing away with a drug lord - to the odd kill / fetch / carry / retrieve sidequest. Mostly, they're fairly generic, and as a way to flesh out the game, some differentiation would have gone a long way. There are however a series of 50 achievements for Xbox 360 owners to encourage protracted play, but it's still difficult not to feel that this is a game sometimes lacking in imagination, where design decisions were preceded in importance by the game engine itself.
But what an engine! The sheer size, scale and scope of Just Cause may look great in screenshots, but seeing it in motion can at times prove jaw-dropping. There's a certain artificial, Far Cry quality to its aesthetic, and though it never aspires for total photorealism, the overall effect of powerful bright colours, deep shadows, motion blur, lense flare, heat haze, water ripples and rich textures all working in unison has to be seen in motion to be believed.
Begging for it.
Of course, the fruit of this comes in the playing - such a painstakingly detailed place just begs to be explored, and the implements handed to you to do so really do open the entire island to some incredible gameplay possibilities.
Rico has two utterly fantastic gameplay devices at his disposal, and it is using these together that sets Just Cause apart from its competition. The parachute and grappling hook form a potent combination for exploration, allowing Rico to hook himself to any vehicle in the game, shoot into the air and do a spot of parasailing - hopping from car, to boat, to helicopter as he goes, before reeling himself in to any of the above and taking control of it.
The parachute is also great on its own for escaping unwanted attention, and can lead to some of the most immense set pieces we've been treated to in any game this year. Try catapulting over a cliff at maximum velocity in a stolen police car, leaping onto the roof (one of the game's many stunt positions), and floating slowly to the ground as the camera pans round and the action turns to slow motion, giving you the best possible view of your pursuers careering over the cliff face one after the other and erupting into flames. Stunning, and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.
It's the xXx of home gaming: So devoid of logic and sense, but so adrenaline-pumping and pretty that you can't help but love it.
Thankfully, despite the lacklustre nature of the tertiary tasks in the game, Just Cause's core 21 story missions are full of moments like this, with some wonderfully open-ended objectives. In assassinating certain targets, for instance, the obvious, GTA-esque manner to deal with it might be to drive there in whatever vehicle you can find, burst your way into the enemies' den guns blazing, and wipe out every last bad guy in the entire area - plus maybe the odd bystander too, just because you can. Yet Just Cause encourages such creative thinking that every player will have a different story to tell with every mission taken: maybe taking the most heavily armoured car they can find, running their target off the road and crushing him against a wall - or perhaps even hurtling a plane directly at their target's convoy as they parachute hundreds of feet above, observing the devastation from afar. It's creative carnage is what it is - and it's delightfully fulfilling when you get it right.
Which just makes the game's few drawbacks all the harder to stomach. Sadly, there are a numerous bugs, such as Rico getting stuck in scenery, or certain objectives not registering as completed even when they should, though these usually prove more a minor annoyance rather than getting close to ruining the game. Likewise, the automatic lock-on targeting isn't up to much, taking a lot of skill out of the game's action and making it all a bit too easy for our liking - as does the eternally recharging health meter. Still, the game is less frustrating as a result, oozing a pick-up-and-play factor that makes it ideal for a ten minute bash or a five hour marathon. And with so much to do and such a wide area to explore, you really can play Just Cause however you like.
And that's why we like Just Cause - it's just the free-roaming title to turn the head of anyone who's getting sick of the whole 'gangsta' theme, but still wants an immediately playable and altogether stunning open world they can explore their own way - all to a spunkily salsa-styled soundtrack. It's a game where you can jump through helicopter blades, hang onto the machine's tail, grapple onto an incoming jet fighter and parachute across to take control of it, all miles above the ground. We'd go so far as to call it the xXx of home gaming: So devoid of logic and sense, but so adrenaline pumping and pretty that you can't help but love it.
Review by: Mark Scott
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Review Published: 27.09.06